.jpg)
Some horses make a routine trail ride into an intractable contest of wills. If you need to trailer to get to the ride, will he load calmly for the trip to the trail? Or will he stand there, stubbornly, as if planted in concrete, giving the trailer ramp the stink eye? Will she decide that today is the day when every squirrel will look like Freddy from Nightmare on Elm Street?
Horses, as everyone knows, are sentient creatures, and they have good days, bad days, and days when nothing seems to feel right. It can be arduous, and there is no shortage of distractions that can get between a rider and a great day in the saddle.
Equestrians know that there are complications, and there are events that are just plain complicated. Such as, taking a horse on a 100-mile ride. In France. In a driving rain. In the Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI) World Endurance Championship for Seniors.
A Hectic Mess
Holly Corcoran, 61, of Stroudsburg, PA is one of the top Endurance riders in the world, and in 2020, she was ranked the Number 1 Endurance rider in the world. That is a testimony both to Corcoran’s competitive spirit and to her commitment to her horses. As she prepared for the 2024 FEI event, there was an exhaustive to-do list, from getting the veterinary records of Lorienn, her 12-year-old Arabian, to scheduling Lorienn’s flight, to arranging transport for Lorienn from Liege, Belgium to Chantilly, France and then to Monpazier, where the competition was held. And then there was the matter of arranging for temporary stabling in Chantilly for several days before heading to the venue.
It’s not like the Olympics, in which there are people who deal with all these pesky details.
“Cargo flights have been absolutely crazy, with cancellations and rescheduling and redirecting,” she says. With the flight changes, Corcoran arrived about eight days earlier than she expected.
“The entire trip was endurance,” she says. She recounted the ever-changing flight schedule that upended her planning. “Lorienn was supposed to fly on the 27th, and then the 22nd, and then the 25th, (of August)”, she says. And at last, the schedule stopped meandering and Lorienn went out on the 20th. “It was challenging, not just because of the hectic mess,” she says. She is a CPA, and still working. “I brought my work with me and tried to juggle that as we were taking care of her.”
She had the chance to watch the boarding process for the horses. It’s not like getting people on the plane. “I had never been part of the process before,” she says, reflecting on Lorienn’s unflappable demeanor. “That mare is rock solid.” The horses are loaded into individual “stalls” on a pallet. “Once they had the pallet full, they are loaded onto a flatbed to get to the plane. It was a little bit heart-wrenching to watch,” she says. “But all the horses did fine.”
Corcoran’s flight to Chantilly was the afternoon of the 20th, and she thought Lorienn would be there already. But there were more complications. “She landed in Liege, and then was supposed to be transported to Chantilly. It turned out that she had been picked up, the truck had problems, and they had to get back to the airport. It was fortuitous because I was there to meet her in Chantilly by the time she arrived.”
Corcoran and Lorienn arrived at the venue on the 4th of September, after spending several days at the stable in Chantilly.
A Weather Alert
Once they arrived in Monpazier they learned that weather would be a big factor in the competition. “We had actually had a fair amount of rain going into that week,” Corcoran says, “so we were able to pre-ride one of the loops. It was an opportunity to see what the footing was like. There was one part that was downhill. It was slippery and ‘slidy’, but we got through it.”
Corcoran is a CPA at heart, and she always has a plan. “I had allocated certain times for each loop,” she says. She was especially concerned with following a plan because her horse had never dealt with a start as big as this, and because the weather threat was significant. “I started out very conservatively,” she says. “It was a bit of misty drizzle before we started, but when we actually did start, it poured. Rain, lightning, thunder. I had to stick my glasses to the end of my nose to see.”
They started at 5:30 a.m. It was dark as well as stormy. “We weren’t able to see the footing, and at one point we were on a camber trail (where the trail’s outside edge is lower than the inside edge so the slope points away from the rider) that had puddles on both sides. Lorienn kept trying to get on top.” Corcoran says it felt as if her horse was going to lose her balance.
The riders were supposed to finish the 100-mile ride before 9:30 p.m., she says. That was the ideal time if the weather had not been so unpredictable. Corcoran’s planning paid off. “I had built in a 50-minute buffer, and some loops I was on time, some I was a little late. We finished about 9:45. The last loop we actually passed horses that were exhausted. But we caught up with one of our teammates, Kelsey Russell, and we rode into the hippodrome together. It was a wonderful way to finish the ride.” Corcoran finished 33rd and Russell finished 34th. Only 45 of the original 118 horse/rider combinations finished the ride.
“Thankfully over the years I’ve had the experience of riding in the rain, in the dark, and I could barely see,” she says. “Honestly, I almost felt at this ride that I was in a bubble. As I was riding, I would see the lightning crack and thought ‘this could be dangerous!’ But it was a matter of acknowledging that all this stuff is going on—you’re soaking wet, it’s dark—but that’s endurance.”
As always, her focus was on her horse. “Measuring the conditions, whatever you’re facing at the time, and taking care of the horse and getting through it.”
Corcoran is not one to dwell on things she can’t control and is happy with how she and Lorienn finished their epic ride. “Our goal was to finish,” she says. “Could there have been times I could have gone faster? Yes. But my goal was to finish. And that’s what we did.”
Taking a Break
After a year Corcoran modestly refers to as “busy,” she is taking a break. She is president and treasurer of the non-profit USA Northeast Endurance. Inc., which she and other Endurance enthusiasts formed to cultivate the sport by supporting young Endurance riders and horses through clinics, competitions and rides. In June they showcased young and experienced riders in the Northeast Endurance Team Challenge at Fair Hill, MD. “It’s been an absolutely crazy year,” she says. From the Fair Hill event to a horseback riding tour of Botswana. “It was wonderful with the horses and the guides we had,” she says. “I am not putting anything on my calendar right now.” Except this. “I’m going to do a ride in October, but that’s about it.”
It's Always All About the Horse
Corcoran will tell you that there are a thousand ways fate can intervene and topple even the most carefully crafted plans. It’s not always a clear path from wanting to compete to competing. In Monpazier, Alex Shampoe, a young rising star in Endurance, withdrew from the competition at the last minute because her horse was lame. It was an unenviable dilemma for the young rider.
At the World Endurance Championship in Pisa, Italy in 2021Corcoran and the entire United States team withdrew when one of their horses developed a fever. Because the US team’s horses had all been stabled together prior to the competition, the team could not be sure that whatever was affecting the individual horse was not contagious. It was a courageous and painful decision, but it was the only correct decision.